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ADDRESS 






HON. B. F'HALLETT, 



tmacnits 0f CIjes|tre OL0untj|, 



KEENE, NEAV HAMPSHIRE, 



FOURTH OF JULY, 1856. 



BOSTON: 4 

PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE BOSTON POST. 
1856. 




t 






ADDRESS. 



Fellow Citizens of the United States of America ! 

That is the proudest title for Americans on this eightieth birthday of our 
Xatioual Independence. Shall we surrender, or shall we maintain that title ? 
July, 4th, 1770, our Fathers declared the then thirteen colonies " Free and 
Independent States." Eleven years after, Sept. 17, 1787, " to form a nWre 
perfect Union," they " ordained and established this Constitution for the 
United States of America." Mark that expansive word "/o/-." " For the 
United States of America," ''for ourselves and our posterity." 

AVhite men of Saxon blood, white men of foreign and native birth ordained 
that Constitution ; not to interfere with domestic slavery, not for the Afri- 
can race, but for themselves and for us their posterity. 

Those words "for ilic United States of America,''' and those other words 
" new States may he admitted,'" made that Constitution then, just what the 
Democratic party North and South hold it to-day — a Constitution for the 
thirty-one States now in this Union, and for all coming States, so long as 
there is territory on this Continent to annex or a people fitted to be admitted 
into the Union. 

That was what our Fathers meant in their expansive and prophetic states- 
manship, by the significant appellations " Continental Congress," " Conti- 
nented army," " Continented money." Think you they were narrowed in 
their conceptions of Eepublican Government to the thirteen Colonies then 
forming the little margin of States on our Atlantic coast, over which you 
can span your thumb and finger on the map of Xorth America ? 

No. They contemplated then what we are achieving now (with no obstacle 
in the way but this useless sectional agitation of slavery), a continent of 
States, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Hudson's Bay 
to the Gulf of ]\Iexico, and (if need be and honorably acquired) the adjacent 
Isles of the sea. They saw in the future of the Eepublicau Empire they 
were founding, the time when that narrow strip of Colonies might say : 

"No pent up Utica contracts our power, 
But the whole boundless Continent is ours." 

Hence, constituted as they all were with laws recognizing domestic slavery, 
they put no such impediment in the way of extension of territory as a conflict 
between Congress and the States, touching the continuance or extension of 
slavery ; but solemnly affirmed as the fundamental condition precedent of their 
first union for independence, ''tlied the regulations of the interned concerns 
of each eohny should be left to the Legislatures." 

That was the origin in '7G, of the very principle of the Nebraska and Kan- 
sas acts as " recognized and adopted " by the Cincinnati Convention in 'oG. 



And wlicrc do we find that clement in confederated government wliicli has 
so extended these States and still preserved their nationality in Union ? Why 
is it that all other Confederacies, Republics and Democracies have fallen to 
pieces, broken into fragments by internal dissensions, or been crushed by a 
foreign despotism, and ours still remains ? The answer is, representation 
and 

EQUALITY OF THE STATES. 

That was in the Declaration of Independence. Each colony was a sove- 
reign, independent State. That was in the articles of confederation, " each 
State retains its sovereignty." That was the corner stone of the Constitu- 
tion. Each State was equal with every other State. Each reserved all it 
did not grant, and each granted alike of its sovereignty to the government of 
the United States ; no State more, no State less than each and all. 

That equality of States embraced all new States that should be admitted 
into the Union, with no condition, disability or restriction affecting their right 
of self government under the Constitution, and their perfect freedom to de- 
termine all their domestic institutions excepting only that they should estab- 
lish a republican form of government. 

Throughout our history no party has ever arisen to deny this fundamental 
republican doctrine, save on the single issue of domestic dare ry. Upon that 
issue the j^eoplc of the United States are called now to decide, with a momen- 
tous responsibility, whether this Union shall be divided and broken up by a 
jSTorthern geographical party, (which if it could succeed could stand only b}' 
establishing a Xorthern Confederation outside of the Union,) or whether we 
shall continue to j^rosper and extend, as a great family of equal States, with- 
in the Union and under the Constitution. That is the issue. 

THE HARTFORD CONVENTION AND BLACK REPUBLICAN CONVENTION COMPARED. 

Twice in our history sectional and geographical parties have been formed to 
divide the Union. Once by the Hartford Convention in 1814, and now by the 
Philadelphia Convention in 1856. The attempt of Congress in 1820, to usurp 
a portion of the reserved sovereignty of a State, known as the Missouri Com- 
promise, was another struggle of sectionalism, but less marked in its divid- 
ing lines and of temporary importance. 

In both of these Northern combinations against the Union, slavery and 
hatred of foreign born, were and are the elements of discord. It is profitable 
to-day to recall the past and compare it with the present — not in a part}' 
spirit, but as a lesson for the love of the Union. 

The far seeing sagacity of Washington, feared, above all things for the life 
of the Union, " ^cograplikal jxi rtu s." 

It did not come upon us in his life time. It began with the first earnest 
conflict of parties which ended in the election of Thomas Jefferson to the 
Presidency, over John Adams, in 1800. A^irginia and Democracy triumphed 
with Jefferson ; JNIassachusetts and the then Northern party fell with Adams. 
From that day the aggressions of a portion of the North upon the South be- 
gan. It was accidental, and not from geographical causes or the influence of 
slavery, that democratic majorities prevailed in the Southern States. But 
let me tell you fellow citizens, what history tells you, that 

THE DEMOCRATIC MAJORITIES IN THE SOUTH, 

always acting in co-operation and harmony with the democracy of the North, 



have given to this country democratic men and measures, and alone secured 
that constitutional, state-rights political " power " in wisely administering 
the general government, miscalled by demagogues and disunionists — 



THE SLAVE rOWER. 



Be not deceived by a name. The power they stigmatize as the slave power 
is that (h inornaic ]>onrr, acting by democratic majorities South and Korth, 
which has made this country democratic ; which has preserved the equality 
of States and the vitality of the Union, by sustaining a national government 
of expressly (hUgatcd powerii, instead of a consolidated government of unde- 
fined usurping powers. It is that democratic power which acquired Louisi- 
ana and the free navigation of the Mississippi in 1803,— admitted her as an 
equal State in 1812, — sustained the second war of Independence,— -purchased 
Florida in 18U, — annexed Texas in 18-i.j, — conquered a peace with Mexico 
in 1848,— extended our borders to the Pacific in 1849, and laid the foun- 
dation of an empire of States along its endless shores. It is that power which 
in the half century of our Union, has expanded this Eepublic from thirteen 
to thirty-one States. It is the political power moreover, which has given us 
by its votes, eleven democratic administrations, and under them^ fought for 
and established every great measure of finance and of domestic policy that has 
agitated the country, until all parties have acquiesced in their final settlement 
by the democratic party. If that is " the slave ■power " against which dema- 
gogues, political parsons, law breakers, and union haters rail, mark it well, 
brother democrats of the North !— it is the progressive, conservative, demo- 
cratic and constitutional power of this Union, North and South ! And when 
Northern democrats, misled by that false cry against their brethren, shall 
strike hands with Northern fusionists, or Southern know-nothings, to strike 
down that power, they will deliver the Constitution, the Union and the Dem- 
ocracy, bound hand and foot, over to their worst enemies. 

I challenge our opponents to name any one great nieasureof national poli- 
cy, any act of progress and enlargement of our country and its liberties ; any 
prominent and enduring legislation at home or diplomacy abroad, that has not 
been made a part of our laws and institutions, by democratic eidmimatrations 
cho&eii andm^taincdhy the votes of Southern and Northern democrats against 
Northern and Southern minorities .' The local fact that Southern democrats 
held slaves, has no more to do with the democratic political power which has 
prevailed in this Union, than the fact that Southern federalists and Southern 
know-nothings owned slaves. And never did you hear this false cry of " slave 
power " raised against those slave-holders at the South, who have joined with 
the federalists, the whigs, the know-nothings, or the freesoilers of the North to 
jnd don-n democratic administrations. Mark that democrats and take a les- 
son from it. When your opponents cry " slave power," they mean, just what 
the Hartford convention federalists meant in 1814, the democratic power. 

AGGRESSIONS ON THE SOUTH. 

Hence, sectional division was the first aggression of the North upon the 
South, not because it held slaves, but because it held Thomas Jefferson and 
democratic votes enough, when combined with the then few Northern demo- 
cratic States, to twice elect him to the Presidency. 

Upon the second election of Mr. Jefferson it was plain that the lost politi- 
cal power of New England could be regained only by putting down the South- 
ern Democratic States, and preventing the admission of new States from the 



6 

South and West, wliicli have ahrays come in democratic States. To aid this 
sectional policy there was but one "subject upon which the people of the States 
disagreed precisely according to geographical lines. That was_ domcbttc sla- 
vcry ; the cry of " slave power !' The Hartford Convention seized upon that 
geographical element of discord to divide and conquer the united Southern 
and Northern democracy. The first movement in that Convention was against 
what they then denounced, just as our opponents do now, " the preponderance 
of the slave power." They demanded of the South as the conditions of con- 
tinuing the Union — 

Pir^t. — That slaves should not be counted as three-fifths of the population 
required to make up the ratio of representation. 

iicconrl — That a two-thirds vote in Congress should be required to admit 
any new State, to lay an embargo and to declare war. 

Third. — And in so many words they " Ilcsolccd that no jyersoti icho shall 
hereafter be naturaltzed, ahall be eligible as a member of the Senate or House 
of R'ep resented ices of the United Stectes, nor eapeiblc of holding any citil of- 
fice under the eiathority of the United Steitcs." 

In the same spirit "the Know Nothing Convention (Feb. 22, 185G.) laid 
down their narrow platform, pledging the party to " the advancement to all 
political stations, executive, legislative, judicial or diplomatic, of those only 
who are Americems by birth, education, and trainifig." 

These changes in government it was proposed to effect not in the mode pro- 
vided for amending the Constitution, but, after the manner of the attempted 
revolution in Kansas, by conventions chosen by the people in each State, out- 
side of the Constitution. 

Massachusetts, with her Hartford Convention bill, was at the head of that 
geographical party of disunion then, as with her " personal liberty " nullifi- 
cation bill, she is at the head of the geographical disunion party of black re- 
publicans and know nothings, now. 

Does any party exist, which will maintain that the Hartford Convention of 
1814: was not a geographical, sectional organization of the federal North 
against the democratic South ? There were then nine non-slave-holding and 
nine slave-holding States in the Union. Every Northern State except Ver- 
mont, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, were in the opposition. Every slave-holding 
State except Delaware was democratic. 

•VVIIO HOLDS THE HAKTFORD CONVENTION CREED? 

I have given you from the record, the creed of the first geographical sec- 
tional party formed in this country. Where is that creed now ? In the 
Coalition Conventions of the " Eepublicans " and " North Americans " that 
nominated Mr. Fremont, and (dso in the Convention of " South Americans" 
and seceding Northern know-nothings, that nominated Mr. Fillmore. 

The first geographical party failed in its purpose to conquer the democratic 
South or dissolve the Union, because Pennsylvania and New York repudiated 
the sectionalism of Massachusetts. The democrats of the North could not 
then be misled by this false cry against " the slave power," to join in that 
sectional conspiracy against the Union. They well understood that the slave 
representation which was denounced then, just as it is now, was not only a 
condition of the Union under the Constitution, but in no wise unjust or un- 
equal, because the slaves of the South, as a portion of its population, so far 
were a substitute for and displaced free population, and therefore should be 
counted in the ratio of representation. Strange, indeed it is, that those 



who hold that a slave is a loholc man, should complain that he is allowed to 
count as three-fifths of a man ! But no slave-holder has, on account of his 
slaves, any more votes at the ballot-box than any other voter Korth or South. 
That I utter no idle words in this history of the first geographical party to 
divide the Union, I will prove to you, by the testimony of John Quincy 
Adams, who is accounted by the anti-slavery party one of their prophets. In 
his letter, written while he was President of the United States, to Harrison 
Gray Otis, Dec. 26, 1828, Mr. Adams affirmed that the design of the North- 
ern leaders was — 

" The establishment of a Nortliern Confederation ; and this plan was so far matured 
that the proposal had been made to an individual, at the proper time, to be placed at 
the head of the military movement, which it was foreseen would be necessary for carry- 
ing it into execution. The interposition of a kind Providence, averted the most deplor- 
able of catastrophies, and turning over to the receptacle of things last upon earth, the ad- 
journed Convention from Hartford to Boston, extinguished, by the mercy of heaven may 
it be forever, the projected New England confederacy." 

That is the history of the past, and by the blessing of the God of our fath- 
ers, such will be the history of this second Northern conspiracy, to violate the 
injunctions of Washington, by arraying one section of the Union against the 
other. 

And what is this second combination to elect a President by Northern votes, 
and outlaw fifteen States of this Union ? Is it not the lineal descendant of 
the sectional Hartford Convention ? I have given you the political doctrines 
of that Convention, on the only two issues which the opponents of the demo- 
cratic party now raise in the Presidential election, slavery and foreign born. 

The Hartford Convention laid down as their platform, no more slave repre- 
sentation, no more slave States, no more foreign born to hold any civil office 
in the United States. 

That was their political bible, when they opposed James Madison, the war 
of 1812, and the admission of Louisiana as a slave-holding State. Whose 
bible is it now ? The Democrats ? No. It is the mixed up creed of a com- 
bined party, known as the black republican, know-nothing- American, free 
soil, anti-slavery, fusion party. That is the sectional geographical party of 
1856, the lineal descendant of the sectional geographical party of 1814. 

Is it not so ? War upon the South, the admission of no more Southern 
States with equal rights with the old States to establish or reject domestic 
slavery as they may elect, and the prohibition by Congress of slavery in all 
the common territory of the United States, which belongs alike to South and 
North. 

That is the black side of the picture. Hartford Convention in every 
shade, perspective and foreground. On the other side, is the same old dog- 
ma of proscription of all foreign born. 

Am I not right then ; historically, politically, precisely right, in affirming 
that the creeds of the only sectional, geographical parties ever organized 
in any number of states to sever the North and South, are the same in prin- 
ciple and purpose, one and indivisible ? 

Here, then, we come home in this 80th year of our National existence, to 
the practical consideration of our duty and our destiny as " Fellow citizens 
of the United States of America." What is, in the language of Washington, 

"THE UNITY OP GOVERNMENT WHICH CONSTITUTES US ONE PEOPLE?" 

Is it not as " dear to you " as when it was blessed by the father of his 
country ? — Are we not a republic of equal states ? Is not the Union of the 



8 

States the sole vital element of nationality ? Is not tlie life blood of the 
Union, the Constitution ? Can there be a nationality or a Union which is 
marked off by a horizontal line of longitude that bounds sixteen States on 
one side and fifteen on the other? 

Well, then, if you have got a party in this country, no matter how they 
are called, that can stand only North of that line, and has no existence 
South of it, is not that a sectional party, a party of half of the Union and 
not of the whole Union ? 

That is the test of nationality and of patriotism. If any party has set 
up a creed to govern this country upon, that cannot be promulgated, or even 
supported, by a respectable minority in fifteen States, then you know it 
has got a sectional creed, no matter who are its nominees, and has gone out 
of the Constitution ; and if it should succeed in dividing the States by its 
geographical line, must go out of the Union, for '-negro freedom " is not 
" national " under the Constitution. Don't tell me, then, Mr. Abolitionist, 
that " freedom is national, and slavery sectional " and therefore you 
have a right to go for "freedom," as you call it, at all hazards, 
by which you mean, not freedom of the tuliite men but "negro free- 
dom " only. That is not in the Constitution, nor in the solemn covenants 
made by our fathers. You are 'prohibited by your oath to support the Con- 
stitution from giving "freedom" to a single slave, against the claim of his 
master, in any spot or j^lace of this w-holc Union. How, then, can "negro 
freedom," be universal in this nation under the Constitution ? It is not 
true, that the Constitution was established to prohibit or limit slavery in 
the States, or to prevent its extension to new States or territories. That 
was one of the " reserved powers," left to the States and to the people. The 
framers of the Constitution, so far from taking upon themselves to suppress 
slavery, agreed by the votes of the North, that the importation of slaves 
from Africa might continue for twenty years, and Northern men availed 
themselves of that commerce in men, and sold their imports to the South. 
Did the North mean to swindle the South out of the purchase money, and at 
some future time compel them to emancipate their slaves ! Did the framers 
of the Constitution mean to permit an accession of half a million to the 
slave population, and then use the powers of Congress to deprive the South of 
this species of labor and property under their local laws ? The single fact 
of this permissive increase of the slave population demonstrates that they 
meant only to exercise the power granted in the Constitution to prohibit the 
foreign slave trade at the end of twenty years, and that other only power 
concerning slavery, the honest restitution of fugitives. Washington, 
Adams, Jefferson and Madison administered this government while the 
African slave trade was legal commerce under the Constitution, and they 
never thought of complaining of the slave power, or of restricting slavery 
in new States, or territories. 

When we bring these facts home to those who are agitating the Union on 
account of slavery, and who pretend that they are bringing back the federal 
government to the principles of Washington and Jefferson, (which in no wise 
meddled with this domestic institution, and whose example we follow,) one 
answer of our oj>ponents is, that the "turpitude of a dei)arted generation" 
is not to become an example for us ; while another answer from the only 
out and out consistent branch of this anti-slavery movement against 
the Union, is that " Washington was a scoundrel for enslaving his fellow men," 
and " the Constitution is a covenant with death and an agreement with 



9 

hell!" [Anti-slavery Convention, IVIay 29, 1850, at Avhich Letters were 
read from Senators Sumner and Wilson. J 

And who talks of "turpitude?" Men who swear to si;pport the Consti- 
tution and then refuse to permit the law of the land to carry out one of the 
plainest provisions of that Constitution, to respect the rights of the South 
and restoi-e its fugitives from labor ! 

Thus, if we mean to act as rational men and good citizens of the United 
States, we must take the fact in our government that slavery existed, and 
was recognized as a State right when the Constitution was formed, and has 
been extended ever since, under that Constitution, to every new State whose 
people chose to establish or affirm it. And that is all the " freedom " of 
interference by Congress with domestic Slavery, under the Constitution. 
Here, then, is the democratic national platform, resting on the fundamen- 
tal principles of the Constitution, and the solemn covenants of our Union — 
the equal rights of the States within their respective Territories, and the 
equal rights of all the States, in the common territory belonging to the 
Union. 

And what is that equal right in the common territory ? In all things, 
under organic laws for their government, which is not prohibited by the 
Constitution. "Non-intervention by Congress with Slavery." — "Not to 
legislate Slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but 
to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." That is, the equal rights of all the States in the common terri- 
tory. 

Now then, whatever may be the settled opinions of the people of the 
Northern States against Slavery, can this " unity of government which con- 
stitutes us one people," continue and be carried on, without a national 
party in all the States, that covers the whole Union ? 

WHERE WILL YOU FIND A CONSERVATIVE, NATIONAL PARTY? 

The old federal party was National, until the effects of the sectionalism of 
anti-slavery engendered in the Hartford Convention destroyed its vitality. 
The whig party, illustrious with the names of Webster and Clay, was na- 
tional, until it yielded to the factious influences of anti-slavery, at the 
North, and the bigotry of Know-nothingism at the South. 

The democratic party is the only party that holds a distinct and perma- 
nent organization in unison, in every State of the Union. The only party 
that can come together in Convention, one side or the other of a geograph- 
ical line ; that can stand upon the Northern or Southern banks of the Poto- 
mac, and represent the same principles, adopt the same platform and nomi- 
nate the same candidates, for the whole thirty-one States. 

GEN. PIERCE AND MR. BUCHANAN. 

This only national party of the Union and for the Union, have just come 
out of a great convention at Cincinnati. Who were there ? Men of emi- 
nence, experience, sagacity, intelligence, ability, integrity, patriotism ; as a 
body unsurpassed by any representation that could be selected by the con- 
stituencies of all the other parties combined. Five hundred and ninety- 
two delegates from thirty-one States, all regularly chosen by an organized 
national party in each of the States, and representing in most of the States 



10 

the majority of the people. They came together to declare their principles, 
to meet distinctly the issues raised by their sectional opponents, to select 
their standard bearers for the whole Union, and to maintain that Union by 
expunging all geographical lines, and religiously adhering to the injunction 
of Washington, " fioivii indignantly upon every attempt to alienate one sec- 
tion of our common country from another, or to enfeeble the sacred tics 
icJiieli hind togdlier its several j^cirts." 

They first adopted a platform and then nominated their candidates. What 
was that platform ? It was just as broad as the Union now is, or as it ever 
can be. It covered every measure of public policy, and every sectional 
issue of the day. It laid down the doctrines of popular government within 
the Constitution and nothing outside of the Constitution, or falling short of 
the whole Constitution, by which the democratic party are to be governed. 
It "claimed fellowship with and desired the co-operation of all who regard 
the preservation of the Union, under the Const itnt ion, as the paramount 
issue." It repudiated all sectional parties and platforms concerning domes- 
tic slavery, and all v.';«-Americanism, that bases its exclusive organization 
upon religious opinions and accidental birthplace — and it recognized as the 
basis of the " republican form of government," required and enjoined by 
the Constitution, that fundamental principle of American Independence, the 
right of the people, in State and Territory, to form and regulate their own 
domestic concerns, under that Constitution. 

That platform was well considered and unanimously adopted in the com- 
mittee on resolutions of one from each State, each member from each of the 
thirty-one States, giving his unf|ualified affirmative. And when, under their 
instruction, as chairman, I had the honor to submit those resolutions to the 
convention, they were received with the most emjihatic expression of unanim- 
ity, and then every State was separately called and every delegate from every 
State of the Union rose in his seat and said " Aye ! " There was not a dis- 
senting or dissatisfied voice. 

And when it came to the test of nomination, how was it ? There were 
three names pre-eminent in that convention an'd in the country. Our oppo- 
nents expected to see us dash them together in broken fragments of discord. 
What was the result ? 

Gentlemen, many of the delegates earnestly desired to secure the re-nomi- 
nation of your most distinguished fellow citizen, by whose election to the 
presidency New Hampshire was more honored than she ever again may be 
honored in all coming time. And yet narrow minded and disappointed men 
and malignant men and fanatical men and li/iug men, here at the home of 
the only democratic President ever chosen from New England, have sought 
to calumniate, villify and dishonor Franklin Pierce, because true to the 
Constitution he would not dishonor himself by becoming a party to this 
sectional war of fanaticism in the North upon the domestic institutions of 
the South ! (Applause.) 

President Pierce is slandered to-day as Jefferson, Madison, Jackson and 
Polk were slandered, each in his day, and for the like reason — fidelity to the 
Union. When the sober second judgment passes upon his administration as 
on theirs, it will do him justice likewise, as having, in his high office, main- 
tained the Constitution at home and the honor of the country abroad, with 
a fidelity, a firmness and integrity that will place his name hereafter beside 
theirs, as the true man to the true democratic principles of our government ; 
(applause) — and that man, when he shall have returned to private life, will 



11 

stand hereafter, elevated in moral dignity and conscious rectitude, as far 
above the heads of these his domestic defamers here at home, as the highest 
peak of your mountains is above the lowest shrub that withers at its feet. 

(Cheers.) ,. . , 

But what did that convention do ? Was there any faction there, any dis- 
position in any man to insist that because he could not have his candidate, 
no others should have theirs'? No. When it was fairly indicated thatthe 
majority of the convention desired the nomination of that great American 
statesman, who stood, of himself and with the broad Pennsylvania for his 
pedestal, towering above all, in all the elements that make pre-eminent states- 
manship and all the qualities that adorn private life ; with age, experience, 
sagacity, calmness, firmness, fidelity, integrity, nationality— all that the peo- 
ple now most desire and demand to guide the helm of State in the impend- 
ing storm of faction, sectionalism and disunion— the friends of Pierce and 
Douglas came in cordially, with not merely a two-thirds vote, but an unani- 
mous voice to the support of James Buchanan. (Cheers.) 

And now, men of New Hampshire, instead of indulging in any regrets on 
your part that your friend and neighbor was not re-nominated, do as he de- 
sires you, and all his friends throughout the land should do— remember that 
the proper way to avenge yourselves upon the enemies of Franklin Pierce is 
at the election next November, to declare by your ballots your protests 
against the insults which his reckless political opponents have heaped upon 
him. Eedeem the old democratic State of New Hampshire from the discredit 
into which she has temporarily fallen, so that when General Pierce retires 
from his high office, and returns home a private citizen, he may find her 
loyal to him, and to the great principles he has sought to maintain. Let 
him not come here to rest his foot upon black republican, know-nothing soil. 
Give him a triumph— give your whole country a triumph by adding your 
State to that grand column of States which will elect James Buchanan ; and 
he will tell you, with his whole and full heart, that is all he asks of justice 
to himself and for retribution to the enemies of that Union he has labored to 
maintain. (Three cheers for Gen. Pierce.) 

TO WHAT PARTY CAN THE GOVERNMENT BE SAFELY TRUSTED ? 

Now, gentlemen, such being the relations in which the democratic party, 
in their plain, practical, honest, common sense interpretation of the Constitu- 
tion and the equal rights of the States, stand all over the Union, where is 
there any other party to whose guidance the sober, sound, conservative, law- 
abiding and Union-loving people of these United States can trust the govern- 
ment in this crisis? Where shall democrats go, who have upheldthe Union 
and enlarged it by the addition of eighteen new States, upon the simple prin- 
ciple of non-intervention with their domestic concerns ? Where shall true 
whigs go, who differed with us only in measures of policy, now settled by uni- 
versal acquiescence ? Where shall that mass of quiet voters go, who are not 
active as politicians nor bitter as partizans, but desire to see a man at the 
head of the general administration who will govern wisely and well ; be him- 
self the President of this whole Union, and surround himself with experi- 
enced statesmen to counsel in the affairs of State ? 

Shall we go into the ranks of the know-nothings or American party, as they 
prefer to call themselves ? You will have to chase all over the continent to 
find them. Shall we go after the " South Americans" or " North Amen- 



12 

cans ?" The Soutli Americans, wlio at first claimed to have some nationality, 
are now only a minority in a few Southern States, with no efficient allies but 
the black republicans of the North ; and every vote they will give is half a 
vote for abolitionism. Personally I respect their candidate, Mr, Fillmore, for 
he has uttered some bold and manly words, and done some service for the 
Union. But he is not now with Daniel Webster, but with the know-nothings, 
and every reason he has given why his friends should not vote for the aboli- 
tion candidate, is a cogent argument for giving their votes to Mr. Buchanan. 
The South, for self-defence, must vote with the Northern Democrats, or vote 
themselves out of the Union by giving po itical power to the combined North- 
ern factions that propose to conquer them into submission. They are too sa- 
gacious as States, not to see that their only strength is in the democratic par- 
ty. There is then no hope for the Union and no power to save it, in the 
" South Americans." 

Shall we go in pursuit of the "North Americans?" I don't know where 
they are out'side of black republican lodges. Go to their Grand Council at 
rhiladelphia, and they don't know whether they adopted or rejected the 12th 
section. All they know is, that they split in two upon the nomination of 
Fillmore and Donelson. Come back to Massachusetts, the hot house of is/fis, 
and inquire at their head quarters, in Springfield ! You go into one hall, and 
you are told they have sloughed ofi" and gone to another. Pursue them to 
that other hall, and they have gone back and fused into black republicanism. 

If we go to the New York Convention, for the real "North Americans" 
and ask Mr. George Law what he has done with them ? Why conveyed them 
over to the black republicans at Philadelphia, at a less price than he sold his 
condemned muskets to the Fillibusters. 

Well then, how can you make a national party out of this Northern North 
American Know Nothing Anti-Slavery party, which is a section of a sectional 
party, subdivided into three other sections. 

I desire to treat the American party with all possible respect, and Mr. 
George Law, too, who, if " enterprize " were the test of fitness for the Presi- 
dency, might well compete with the explorer of the Eocky Mountains. But 
where are tliey ? That is the question. I think we must say of the know- 
nothing party now, that we don't know nothing about them. 

Why they have all gone into this black republican, anti-slavery fusion, 
which has absorbed them, just as Mr. Speaker Banks proposed to carry out 
the "absorption of the black and white races," until you cannot tell which 
complexion preponderates in this " Picpublican " party; whether hatred of 
white men born South, or of white men foreign born. And there you have 
this singularly sectional and unsexed amalgamation party, with anti-slavery 
enough to dissolve the Union if they can, and anti-Americanism enough to 
proscribe all men who have become Americans of their own free choice, in- 
stead of having accidentally been born Americans without any choice at all ! 

That is the butt end of " Americans ruliiig America." It is " negroes and 
natives must rule America" — provided, however, the natives were born north 
of Mason and Dixon's line. They are ready enough to make slaves of white 
men — to catch an honest German or Irishman who fled from oppression to 
this land of freedom, and tie him up for twenty-one years before they will 
allow him to have the semblance of citizenship, and even after that, keep him 
and all naturalized foreign born, like the white Helots in Sparta, forever 
incapable of holding any office in the State. But they cannot bear that a 



13 

black man, -who is a slave in Missouri, sliould be carried over the river into 
Kansas, where he is no more a slave than he was in Missouri ! And thus in 
this form of double proscription, they are working together with the anti- 
slavery men to stir up the native whites against foreign laborers to prevent 
their living or coming hei'e, and at the same time willing to destroy the 
Union, rather than permits slave negroes or free negroes to go into Kansas; 
for the Topeka " Free State Constitution " on which they want Kansas ad- 
mitted, excludes all blacks, //Yt' as well as slaves from their soil. 

THE DEMOCRATIC PAKTY TAKES XO POSITION IN FAVOR OF SLAVERY. 

It does not propose, nor does the South ask for any legislation from Con- 
gress, to establish or extend slavery. The democratic i>arty mean to take 
care of the best interests of the twenty-five millions of white men at home, 
and keep the country open as an asylum for the oppressed of other lands. — 
They leave the slave population just where God and the Constitution placed 
them, in the hands of the people of the States who have the sole responsibili- 
ty of the evil or good that results from the institution, and must answer in the 
day of judgment, for that great responsibility. There the democracy, with 
an abiding trust in Providence to work out the destiny of the race, leave 
slavery, with non-intervention by Congress, pro or con in the matter — while 
on the other hand, " fools " (in political economy and fanatics in party politics,) 
undertake to "rush in where angels " (and statesmen) " fear to tread," and 
break up this whole Union, by sectional agitation, without even the probable 
chance, or the semblance of a practical plan or policy by which they can free 
a single slave in this broad land. They have not done it by twenty-five years 
of bitter clamor and vituperation of the South, and they will not do it if God 
should permit them to go on in their " railing accusations," for another twen- 
ty-five years. 

"WHY WE CALL THEM BLACK REPUBLICANS." 

Here then the country is divided into two parties, all of one party being 
north of a sectional line, and the other party having its majorities or minori- 
ties in every State of the Union. 

Those parties, in whose coming conflict the stake is not the Presi- 
dency merely, but the Union, are the democratic and black republican know- 
nothing party. We call them black republicans not discourteously, but be- 
cause they are the radicals in negro freedom, as the red republicans, who by 
their excesses destroyed constitutional government in France, were, in their 
impossible theory of the universal equality of the whites. Besides, that par- 
ty is the representation only of one portion of the people of half the States. 
By their " Republic," they mean an anti-slavery Northern Piepublic. That is 
not the Eepublic of thirty -one States, and therefore they have no claim to be 
called republicans. 

And how does that party come before the country, claiming if they can, to 
combine the entire North against the South, and then to elect a President for 
the whole of the United States ? In their Convention, which nominated Mr. 
Fremont there were delegates from the abolition party, such as it is, in sis- 
teen States. It was therefore exclusively a sectional nomination, because 
made in a Convention in which half the States of this Union were a blank. 
They say those States /night have been represented in that Convention if they 
chose. That is an insult to the Southern States. The avowed purpose of the 



14 

Convention was, to nominate a President and Vice President, for whom no 
Southern State, and no Southern man can vote. Let us look at 

THE PLATFOKM OF THE BLACK KEPUBLICANS AND KNOW-NOTHINGS. 

What are the issues ? All about this matter o^ Kansas, and a single case 
of assault and battery — transient, local, limited, personal issues. 

First and last they lay down as their corner stone of principles, '_' that the 
Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign poicer over the Territories of 
the United States, for their gorcrnntent ; and hence it is the duty of Congress 
to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and 
slavery." 

We don't propose to trouble ourselves at present about polygamy. That is 
not in the issue, and exists only in one anomalous Territory, and was not 
guaranteed in the Constitution as is slavery. I will only say now, that it is 
rather ungracious in our opponents, who are so much given to political 'polij- 
gamy themselves, in their intermarriages with known-othings and all sorts 
of parties that will consent to be courted by them, to make this fling at their 
brother ]\Iormons. who, like them, go by a " higher law " whenever human 
laws don't suit them. 

Their position is, that Congress shall prohibit Slavery in all the Territo- 
ries, without consulting the will of the people, or giving them any voice in 
the matter. But whence comes this 

DESPOTIC POWEE CLAIMED FOR CONGRESS, 

over the people of a Territory, and their property? The Constitution 
says, (and that is all it says,) " Congress shall have power to dispose of, 
and make all needful rules and regulations respecting tkc territory or otlier 
'projnrti/ belonging to the United States." Mark the limitation, "terri- 
tory" not Territories. There was "territory," land belonging to the 
United States, but no territorial government established under the power 
given to Congress in the Constitution. 

The Ordinance of 1787 was outside of the Constitution before it was 
framed, and has no life under it. It was a compact between the then sover- 
eign states, " to provide for the establishment of States therein, and for 
their admission to a share in the federal councils on cut equal footing tvith 
the original States." 

That is the language of the ordinance ; so that at the start, it was the 
meaning of our fathers, that the old States having each the power to estab- 
lish or abolish slavery, the new States to be equal should have the same 
power. The prohibition of Slavery in the North West Territory, thus 
limited to the space before States were formed out of it, and by the consent 
of Virginia which ceded it and of all the Stairs, was an exception and not a 
rule for subsequent Territories formed after the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion, and where half the States deny the power of restriction. Hence, no 
power of Congress, over the people of the Territories can be derived from 
the Ordinance of 1787, and so the Supreme Court of the United States has 
repeatedly decided. 

All that can fairly be said of the power of Congress over Territories within 
the Constitution, is, that if there are people settled on the territorial lands 
belonging to the United States, an incidental and necessary power and duty 
arise, (sometimes, as in the case of Louisiana and Florida, enjoined by trea- 



15 

ty,) for Congi'ess to give to the people an organic form of government, to 
protect and bring them under the laws, and enable the people to prepare for 
admission into the Union as an equal State. But the power of Congress 
does not extend to the property of the people of a Territory, and Congress 
has no more right to go there and take a man's slave, than it has to take a 
man's house. Questions of private property must be settled by local laws, 
and judicial decisions, and he who maintains that Congress can, by law, 
interfere between the master and slave, must also maintain that it has like 
power to interfere between the owner and his private property. 

The much abused, and grossly misrepresented, Nebraska and Kansas Acts 
are based upon this fundamental principle of popular government. Con- 
gress, thereby has established a frame of Grovernment, not over the propcrtij, 
but /or the ]Mop/c of the Territories. It constitutes an executive, a Judici- 
ary and a Legislature. It declares that " the legislative power of the Terri- 
tory shall extend to all rigl/tfttl subjects of legislation, consistent with the 
Constitution of the United States, and this Act," Thus, the JuoLsas Act con- 
fers no unconatUutional -power. It leaves all questions concerning the 
property of the people, and all municipal regulations to be settled 
by the Legislature, under the Constitution of the United States. What- 
ever power Congress has in this respect, it confers upon the Territorial 
Legislature, but it confers no unconstitutional power. Hence, if the 
Legislature pass an unconstitutional act, or exercise an unconstitu- 
tional power, it is not within the powers conferred by Congress, 
— but whether an act be within such powers, must be settled by judicial 
trial and construction, because the Judiciary must decide and not mobs or 
Topeka Constitutions, what is, and what is not " consistent with the Con- 
stitution of the United States." Hence 

THERE IS NO DIFFICULTY BETWEEN SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN DEMOCRATS ON 

THIS POINT. 

For this fair interpretation puts an end to all political agitation as to the 
authority of the Legislature of the Territory to establish, or abolish slavery 
therein, before it becomes a State. Congress has conferred on the Territory 
no power that the Constitution has not given to Congress, and the Territory 
can exercise no power which is not " consistent with the Constitution of the 
United States ; " and the extent and limit of the power conferred, must be 
determined, in the last resort, not by Sharpe's Kifies, but by the Supreme 
Court of the United States. 

There can be no plainer proposition than this, to define, beyond all 
cavil, the powers of Congress and of the Territorial Legislature, concerning 
domestic Slavery, — and thus the democratic party. North and South, acqui- 
escing in the decision of all judicial questions by the Supreme Court whose 
Judicial power "extends to all cases arising under the Constitution, and 
laws of the United States," have, and can have no practical grounds of dif- 
ference as to the legal rights of slave property, or any other property, 
" under the Constitution," in the Territories. And touching this question 
of slave property, the Kansas Act deals with it with the utmost fairness, for 
it expressly provides that, " in all cases involving title to slaves, a writ of 
error or appeal shall be allowed, and decided by the Supreme Court of the 
United States, without regard to the value of the matter in controversy." 



16 

That is our ])cacc in the Territories, and by that we will abide. None 
but unreasoning partizans or misguided enthusiasts or lawless men, who are 
rea Ij to trample on the express power given by the Constitution to the 
Supreme Court to determine "all cases in law and equity, arising under the 
Constitution and laws of the United States," can condemn or disregard these 
fundamental principles and provisions of the Kansas Act. And this estab- 
lishes on a firm Judicial basis, outside of all party and political agitation, 
the equal rights of all the citizens of all the States in the common 
Territory. 

The second proposition or rather assertion in the platform of the opposi- 
tion is, that " the fkarcst rip;J/tx of the people of Kansas have been violently 
taken from them ! " 

Now the "rights" thus declared to be so (har, are the very rights se- 
cured under the Kansas Act itself ; and here we have the men who denounce 
that act as atrocious tyranny, lamenting that the people have been deprived 
of the very rights which it secures to them, viz., that they should be "per- 
fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions." 

Por the democratic party reprehend, as much as the freesoil party can 
do. all the acts of resistance to law and all outrages upon private rights, 
which have transpired in the affairs of Kansas. The President, in his pro- 
clamation of Feb. 15, 1856, said, 

" I called on the citizens both of adjoining and distant states to abstain 
from unauthorized intermeddling in the local concerns of the Territory, ad- 
monishing them that its organic law is to be executed with impartial justice", 
that all individual acts of illegal interference will incur condign punish- 
ment, and that any endeavor to intervene by organized force will be firmly 
withstood." 

If it be objected that this proclamation has not been carried out, the 
plain answer is, that is not true. The armed intruders from Missouri 
have been excluded from the Territory. If the free State men have under- 
taken to set themselves above the laws, and have usurped not only the Ter- 
ritorial government, but the Judicial power of the United States, to deter- 
mine what laws are to be obeyed and what legislation is valid, all that is 
none of their " rights," and if they assume to exercise such " dear rights," by 
violence, they must be met with violence, and treated as rebels and law- 
breakers. 

Thirdly, the Black Republican platform proposes, (and this is the only 
measure it is pledged to affirmatively,) that with a floating population less 
than the larger class of cities and towns in the States, Kansas shall be 
forthwith admitted as a State, under the Topeka Constitution. A constitu- 
tion made by the promiscuous delegates of a party forced there by aid socie- 
ties expressly to abolitionize the Territory — and so loosely put together that 
it cannot be settled what was adopted by the party that voted upon it, or 
what was manufactured by a committee afterwards, and submitted to Con- 
gress without the genuine signature of a single member of this volunteer 
Convention. 

• THEIR DECEPTION TOWARDS THE ADOPTED CITIZENS. 

Further, the platform sneers about the " highwayman's plea embodied in the 
Ostend Circular," (which is nowhere to be found in that document as they 
falsely affirm, — the only plea, there being the absolute necessity of national 



17 

existence and. security,) and finally declares "that they xoill oppo&e all hgis 
hitioii impairing the security of liberty of conscience and equality of rights 
anions citizens." 

This clause was supposed to be the last kick given to the poor know-nothings, 
and it has been exulted over as " a perfect success " to catch the foreign 
vote. Upon this they are contriving to coax in the German citizens, while 
they satisfy the know-nothings, and retain them as their allies, to put down 
the foreign born, if they can get the power by the aid of these prescriptive 
auxiliaries. 

How can both these opposites be gained ? Simply, as the managers fancy, 
by the cunning double dealing of tliis pretended liberal declaration. But 
there is nothing in it that crosses the creed of the know-nothings. The 
pledge embraces only citizens, those now citizens whether foreign or native 
born, — and it proposes only to protect them against legislation to impair 
their rights as citizens. 

Thank God, neither foreign nor home born require any such pledges from 
any party. The Constitution, and the Judiciary will protect them against 
all the laws the know-nothings can make, to impair their civil and religious 
rights. But what the foreign born have to fear, is shutting the door against 
future citizenship to their lathers, sons, brothers and friends from " father 
land," who come to this land of liberty for a refuge ; and further than this, 
excluding from all office every citizen if guilty of the crime of foreign birth ! 
Look at that plausible delusion. No promise against a twenty-one years' 
exclusion from citizenship ; — no pledge to secure to adopted " citizens " 
" equality of rights " with native born to elect and be elected to office. 

That then is their platform, and the whole of their platform. In sixteen 
States there are majorities or large minorities which will have nothing to do 
with it, and in fifteen States the people unanimously regard it as a declara- 
tion of war upon their constitutional rights. 

And here we have in this negative platform, the positive assertion of but 
a single measure, the immediate admission of Kansas, with her Topeka con- 
stitution. All the " shrieks for freedom and Fremont," are reduced to that 
very small cry ! That is the whole of it. 

A great party — a momentous issue is it not, to absorb and thereafter to 
dismember this great Eepublic of thirty-one States, and thirty millions of 
people — all about the little local matter, whether a mass meeting Constitu- 
tion never fairly written out and signed, made iip and adopted against law 
and good order, by a few transient and forced emigrants from the North, who, 
though pretending to be a majority, have, as is now said by their friends, 
mostly left the territory they undertook to make an impromptu State of: — 
whether such a Constitution with such a sparse and floating population shall 
be recognized by Congress as the " fairly expressed will of a majority of the 
actual residents of Kansas," for a permanent frame of State government ? 

That is the " remedy " and the onl}^ remedy for the disturbance in Kansas, 
upon which the combined opposition to the democrats propose to fight out the 
Presidential election, and keep Kansas out of the Union. 

THE DEMOCRATIC HEMEDY. 

Now please compare it with the platform of the democratic party accepted 
by ilr. Buchanan. 

" Risolced, That we recognize the right of the people of all the Territories, 
including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly ex- 



18 

pressed will of a majority of actual residents, and whenever the number of 
their inhabitants justifies it, to form a Constitution, wither without domes- 
tic slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect e(|uality 
with the other States." 

If that is not the only true and sound principle upon which to admit Ter- 
ritories as new States, whenever the number of inhabitants justifies it, and 
without question as to their laws concerning domestic slavery, any more than 
as to their laws concerning religion, where can we find it ? How else can 
this Union be extended as a Union of equal States ? 

We have now arrived at a practical issue upon the question, what shall be 
done with Kansas ? It is the only fuel which the anti-slavery agitators have 
left with which to boil their political cauldron, and for the benefit of the 
country I am happy to say I think their vocation is gone. I hold in my hand 
the bill which has just passed the Senate by a vote of 33 to 12, for the paci- 
fication of Kansas, and a full and free expression of the will of her real peo- 
ple, who mean to share her destiny in the Union. The House, which has 
an opposition majority, has done nothing to quiet affairs in Kansas, but only 
to inflame them. The Senate has done its duty to the country by perfecting 
and passing this bill. If the House do not pass it, or if they attach to it 
some impracticability for the express purpose of defeating it, the sober judg- 
ment of the country must and will understand that the black republicans 
are keeping open the wounds of what they call " bleeding Kansas," merely to 
make political capital for the Presidential election. The House has done 
nothing to protect the rights of the people of Kansas. The President is fairly 
employing the power the Constitution has given him, to secure this desired 
end. General Persifer Smith, a gallant and high minded man, an able law- 
yer as well as a brave soldier, goes there with power to dispose of all border 
intruders, all armed invaders and law-breakers, and to sec that the organic 
law establishing the Territory is faithfully executed by the civil power. The 
question is, shall the Constitution and laws of the United States prevail, or, 
shall revolution, rebellion and invasion from abroad, continue to produce their 
legitimate fruits, anarchy, bloodshed and civil war ? 

There have doubtless been great outrages in Kansas, on both sides, but 
there have been still greater exaggerations. Dr. Smith, the late Mayor of 
Boston, an intelligent man, whose sympathies would all be with the New 
England emigrants, has just returned from the Territory, and he tells us 
that these stories about the bloody border warfare between free state 
and pro-slavery men, are the exagerations of party invention. Every lawless 
act committed in the Territory is attributed by the press to the " border ruf- 
fians," but the late Mayor informs us, and evidently with truth, that they 
are perpetrated chiefly by lawless men and banditti, belonging to no party, 
who take advantage of the disturbed condition of affairs to rob and plunder 
and murder ; and what is wanted is to drive these men out of the Territory, 
and leave it to the peaceful bona fide residents and emigrants who go there for 
honest purposes of honest settlement. Col. Sumner is doing this with a 
steady and impartial hand, and General Smith, who has never failed in his 
duty, will perfect the pacification of Kansas, and soon the people of the Ter- 
ritory will be free to act for themselves without molestation. 

Then comes the bill which has just passed the Senate, and which provides 
in the most eftectivc and stringent manner that the power of Congress can 
do it, for the peace of the Territory. Let the calm people who have not lost 
(i\-nv reason by the false and inflamatory appeals made to them, examine this 



19 

bill, the responsibility of which now rests with the House, and see if it is not 
fair, just, reasonable, and all that the exigencies of the case require. 

First, it is clear that there cannot be two governments, set up and acting 
at the same time in the same Territory. That is revolution or rebellion. — 
One of the conflicting organizations must be put down. The Territorial gov- 
ernment is the only government that can be recognized by the United States 
authorities under the Constitution. The House say admit Kansas as a State 
under her party Topeka Constitution. The Senate say that is no expression 
of the will of the people, but we offer a measure of peace which will insure 
the formation of a Constitution in which the actual people of Kansas shall 
fairly declare their will. 

The only answer to that is, that the men who made the Topeka Constitu- 
tion have been driven out of the Territory and will never go back again. 
Now if this were the fact, is it not plain that a Constitution made under the 
reign of anarchy, by a party of men who have abandoned the Territory, and 
do not mean to return to live under it, ought not to be forced upon the peo- 
ple who are and actually will be citizens of Kansas next November and had 
no voice in making the Constitution they are to live under ? Clearly Kansas 
should not be compelled to take a Constitution made by absentees, and if this 
is her condition measures must be taken to secure the adoption of a Consti- 
tution which shall be the will of the majority of the people who are actual 
inhabitants when it is adopted. 

This the Senate bill provides for. It guards the rights not only of those 
now in the Territory, but also of those who have left the Territory from any 
cause, if they choose to return as peaceable citizens and not as organized 
bands of rebels against the government of the United States with arms in 
their hands. The Senate Bill expressly provides 

" That all persons who shall have been bona fide inhabitants of the Territorry at any 
time since its organization, and who shall have absented themselves therefrom in conse- 
quence of the disturbance therein, and shall return before the first day of October next, 
with the intent of making it their permanent home, shall be entitled to vote in the elec- 
tion, in November, of delegates to form a Constitution." 

Can more than this be asked, unless the design of our opponents is to 
force upon the real people of Kansas, against their will, a Constitution made 
during a rebellion a year ago, by persons who are not now inhabitants of 
Kansas and never mean to be ? 

The bill further provides that impartial Commissioners shall be appointed 
by the President and Senate, to make a new census, and prepare a printed 
voting list with all the guards that are provided for the voting lists in any 
State election, and no person shall vote whose name is not on the list. And 
then to insure this, and the peaceful exercise of all rights of citizenship in the 
Territory, the presence of United States troops at every place of election, to 
repel all invasions of the ballot-box, is secured under the provisions of the 
law of 1807, which authorizes the employment of such part of the land and 
naval forces of the United States, as shall be necessary for causing the laws 
to be duly executed. 

Now turn to the report made by the majority of the Committee sent by 
the House of Ecpresentatives to Kansas to investigate its affairs. Their seventh 
proposition is this : — 

" That in the present condition of the Territory a fair election cannot be held without 
a new census, a stringent and well guarded election law, the selection of impartial judges, 
and the presence of United States troops at everyplace of election." 



20 

Every one of their safeguards arc now in the Senate bill, and yet the agi- 
tators oppose it because tluy cannot trust the President and Senate to ap- 
point the Commissioners ! What factious nonsense ! The Constitution en- 
trusts the President and Senate to appoint '* ambassadors, judges and all oth- 
er officers of the United States," but these agitators in Kansas cannot trust 
only power known to the Constitution to appoint Commissioners there. 

Why if they could elect their President, still a democratic Senate must 
pass upon the Commissioners, and in the mean time Kansas can have no re- 
lief. And further than all this, the Senate bill to quiet Kansas, suspends 
all other elections in the Territory, till Kovember, and abrogates all the 
black acts of the Territorial Legislature, tthklb cuts liacc never been cittempt- 
cd to he enforced at cdl, by any civil or military poicer in the Territary. All 
the obnoxious acts are abrogated which imposed a test-oath, or a tax or any 
qualification for a voter not in the organic law, or " that shall restrain or 
prohibit free discussion of any law or subject of legislation, or the free ex- 
pression of opinion thereon, by the people of the Territory." 

Driven from every other point of objection, our opponents turn upon the 
very law their Kansas Committee recommended, and say this act belies the 
doctrine of leaving it to the Legislature to make their own laws ! Suppose 
it did, can they honestly make that objection '? But this bill of the Senate 
does not at all interfere with the popular principles of the Kansas Act, 
because that act expressly prohibited the Legislature of Kansas from pass- 
ing any law " not consistent with the Constitution of the United States," 
and left the peple "perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic insti- 
tutions, in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States:' 

The Territorial Legislature violated the Constitution when they passed 
these obnoxious laws against freedom of speech and the press, and although 
they have never been attempted to be enforced, yet, as they are wholly in- 
consistent with the freedom which the organic law of Congress gives to the 
people in forming their domestic institutions. Congress, to secure a free ex- 
pression of opinion upon slavery in the Territory, merely re-affirms the 
original Act by abrogating these laws. That is no conflict with the rights 
of the people to make constitutional laws. 

OUR REMEDY, AND THEIRS. 

You see, now. Fellow citizens, our remedy, and theirs. Which commends 
itself most to your sober judgment? Even if we admit all they have in- 
vented of outrages in Kansas, there stands the fact that the Topeka Consti- 
tution was not made by the fairly expressed will of a majority of the actual 
inhabitants ; and its friends now assert that it is an absentee Constitution. 
Whatever, then, may have been " the wrongs of Kansas," we must right 
them the best way we can, to get at the fairly expressed will of the people, 
and this the Senate Bill will do, if human legislation can reach it. 

That, I repeat, is our peace for Kansas. Theirs is to do nothing but 
" agitate," and let Kansas " bleed," while they " shriek for freedom ! " 

I pray you, good friends, mark these plain facts. We say let the people 
have a fair trial to make a Constitution for Kansas and wait four months for 
them to do it fairly. Their reply is, admit Kansas immediately under the 
old Topeka Constitution, because those who made it are not there, and won't 
come back to vote for a new one ! 'We say we will give you till October to 
have a fair test, who are the real settlers in Kansas from the beginning. 



21 

They say that won't do, because they fear a majority in the Territory will 
make Kansas a slave State ! Of what use, then would it be to adopt their 
Topcka Constitution now, which they admit is not the will of the jvcscnt 
majority in Kansas and would be in a minority next October ! If this be 
true, it gives up their case, for if the Topeka Constitution is not the will of 
the majority, it should not be adopted by Congress, and if it were, adopted it 
would be useless, because the majority would change it before next November ! 

But all this reasoning will go 'for nothing with madmen and mere partizans. 
The " black republicans " do not want to pass any bill that the Senate can 
agree to. They can't allow Kansas to be quieted without losing their whole 
stock in trade for the Presidency, and so they must continue to keep poor 
"bleeding Kansas" bleeding on the stump, till after election! They want 
a murder a day in Kansas, to keep their political pot boiling, and if the 
" border ruffians " wont, help them to it, or if the President with the United 
States troops prevents it, then the Telegraph will manufacture them to order 
for the newspapers ! 

An entire and reckless disregard of law and of constituted authority has 
marked this Kansas free State movement from the beginning. To prove 
this, a few facts are sufficient. 

The first free State meeting held in Kansas to make a Constitution, 
(August 15, 1855,) resolved "that every man had a right to resist and defy 
the laws of the Territory, and that wc nnLl ra,id them to a bloody ismc as 
soon as we ascertain that peaceable remedies shall fail." 

Governor Eeeder of Kansas, addressing his partizans said " we must con- 
quer or mingle the bodies of the oppressors with those of the oppressed, 
upon the soil which the declaration of Independence no longer protects." 

Mr. Lane, President of the Philadelphia Convention that nominated Mr. 
Fremont, said of the resistance to law in Kansas — "such rebellion as theirs 
was sanctioned by God and man." 

Col. James Watson Webb (who, doubtless, is to be the military leader of 
this new Northern Confederation) said in the Convention, and was ap- 
plauded, that if they did not elect Mr. Fremont and admit Kansas, they 
must " Drive back the slavc-ocmr// m-ord in, handy 

Senator Sumner affirmed in his last speech in the Senate that " i is the 
remedy of Tyranny for the President to enforce obedience to the aivs^ in 
Kansas, whether federal or local." That was his resistance to the United 
States. 

So say the men of Worcester, Massachusetts, who, it is averred have 
raised $10,000 to furnish arms and aid for Kansas. They openly avow that 
the purpose is "to enable the free State settlers to overcome their last and 
WORST ENEMIES, THE United States GOVERNMENT." Thus they and the Sena- 
tor agree in law breaking, and in levying war against the United States, 
which is simply treason. 

THREATS OF WAR ON THE SOUTH. 

And from civil war in Kansas they move on to civil war upon the South. 
This is the process wanting only in courage — by which they propose " to keep 
the Union together," as proclaimed in a recent black Eepublican Convention 
in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. 

" Resolved, That we will keep the Southern States in the Union by persuasion if we 
can, but if necessary, by force \" 



22 

At a meeting in Charlestown, Massaclxusctts, a Mr. C. C. Woodsman 

Baid : — 

" He had no faith in the braggadocio and threats of the South, but if we came to a con- 
flict we could drive the minions of slavery so far beyond Mason's and Dixon's line that 
Satan would fail to discover them with a spy glass." 

These arc the ravings of madmen and braggarts, and yet they are the fuel 
with which a sectional party feeds fanaticism. Such are their api^eals to the 
reason of the people whose votes they solicit to put them and their candidates 
into power. 

THE DESECRATION OF THE PULPIT TO PARTY. 

And this seditious and incendiary spirit of civil war is carried into the 
lyulpit. No longer can we say — 

" The pulpit, and I name it filled with solemn awe." 

The ministers have descended from the sacred desks into the heat and dust 
of party strife. Forgetting their mission from Christ of "peace on earth 
and good will to men," they seem to have taken a commission from the devil, 
to sow the tares of discord, disunion and civil war. 

" Go ye into the world and preach the gospel to every creature," is re-trans- 
lated by the J^ew Haven College of divines, into " go ye into Kansas toith 
Sharj/s ri/h'S and shoot even/ lii'o-slaciry man .'" 

The Eev. Henry Ward Beechcr, when blessing the Sharp's rifles, destined 
for civil war in Kansas, in the hands of Deacons of the churches, justified his 
exhortations to bloodshed and murder by impiously quoting the language of 
the Savior to his disciples, just before his betrayal, " he that hath no sword, 
let him sell his garment and buy one." But he wickedly perverted the 
purpose of that divine lesson of peace which our Lord taught when that weap- 
on was used even for defence. " Put iqi again thy sicord into lis 'place, for 
all they that Pike the sword shall pensh by the sword." 

Let me submit to your christian judgment, a few of the insane teachings 
of war, blood and murder, which are thrown at us almost every Lord's day, 
from the pulpit by those who ask the men of the world to regard them as the 
ministers of God in holy things ! 

The Eev, Mr. Bretcer, at one of their Kansas aid meetings, was in favor 
of using fire-arms and fighting for freedom in Kansas. 

Kev. Mr. Cluuidler, believed that Sharp's rifles were the best peace mak- 
ers. There was no danger too many would be introduced into Kansas. 

Rev. Mr. Lore.joy, was willing to go as captain or private. He would use 
Sharp's rifles and fire with good aim. 

And thereat, that same Eeverend Henry Ward Beecher, exclaims — " I 
hold it to be an everlasting disgrace to fire at a man and not hit him !" He 
held Sharp's rifles to be better missionaries in Kansas than bibles, and in the 
house of God punned upon the name of Deacon Kill 'cm, when that professor 
subscribed for an instrument of death ! 

And talking of " compromises," the Eeverend Belligerant said — 

" He had never heard of but one good one : the answer of Governor Robinson of Kan- 
sas, to Governor Shannon's demand of the people of Lawrence, to surrender their rifles. 
" Well, sir, in regard to the rifles I propose to compromise — we will keep the weapons 
and give you the contents ! That compromise," he added, " I think would work !" 

And so the secular press takes up the burden of the clerical war song, 
danced by ministers and deacons in the church of Christ — and the New York 
Tribune exclaims — 



23 

" The friends of freedom must continue to do wliat they have hecn doing ever since 
the passage of the Nebraskabill — pour free settlers into Kansas, well armed with Sharp's 
ritles. Above all let there be no lack of arms. Plenty of arms and plenty of men to 
use them." 

I thank God rliat all ministers even among anti-slavery clergymen arc not 
thus bloody minded. The Rev. Dr. Gannett of Boston, in a recent sermon, well 
said 

" I read with sadness the language of christian men and christian ministers, -whose 
brave words, if they be well considei-ed, are bloody words. To mc the musket and the bible 
do not seem twin implements of civilization." 

PROTESTANT PRIESTCKAFT. 

"VVc have heard a great deal about the Pope and Catholic Priestcraft, and 
this very know-nothing party was got up expressly as they said to swal- 
low up all other parties in order to meet the grand necessity of putting down 
Popery and foreign Priestcraft in young America. 

But here we have got native Fro/csta/it Fricdcraft, training its deluded 
followers for civil war, rebellion and bloodshed; dictating how they shall 
vote, and cramping their consciences in the vice of bigotry, " hatred, malice 
and all uncharitableness " against democratic licicLics, because they will not 
intermeddle with the domestic slavery of the South. 

The Bcechers' and clergy of that stamp, who are preaching blood and carn- 
age from the pulpit in this crusade for Kansas, assume to be the FroLaslunt 
ropes of the day. " In the name of Almighty God " they command Congress 
not to pass the Nebraska act, and when it is passed they issue indulgencics 
to their followers to fight, and thunder their excommunications against the 
President and all who dare to diifer from their creed in politics. They are 
like 

THE PREACHERS OP >VITCnCRAFT IN 1G92, 

the Cotton Mathers of that day, who knew better while they inflamed the 
fanaticism of the people by preaching hangings and drownings for witch- 
craft. 

This Kansas delusion at the North, which eifects some wise and good men 
under such teachings as did the delusion of that period, runs in the same vein 
of moral insanity, and this manufactured, perverted and exaggerated evidence 
of Kansas wrongs and outrages, is just about as reliable as the voluntary con- 
fession forced from the pretended victims of witchcraft. It was proved by 
the reverend agitators of that day upon better evidence than the Kansas 
committee have furnished in their electioneering report, that general assem- 
blies of witches were held in which they appeared naked and besmeared with 
an ointment made from the bodies of unbaptized infants, that they rode from 
great distances on pokers and broomsticks, the devil taking the chair under 
the form of a black goat. Here they did homage to the prince of hell, and 
oftcrcd him sacrifices of young children and practiced all sorts of license till 
cock crowing. 

That is about a fair description of the idea entertained by unsophisticated 
free sellers of the " border rufiians " of Kansas ; and the anti-slavery fanatics 
of New England arc no wiser, truer or more sincere in this Kansas delusion, 
than were their fathers in the hallucinations of 1G92. The reverend and secu- 
lar leaders in the present temporary delusion well know and understand all 
this, ]>ut their aim is party power, and they mean to make the most of it. — 



24 

Their time is short and they will be able to practice their political witch- 
craft only, " until cock crowing " on the morning of the election of Mr. Bu- 
chanan. 

ALL THE TERRITORIES ARE QUIET. 

Is it not remarkable that under the same organic law as to slavery, there 
is no trouble in any of the Territories except Kansas ? Why not ? Simply 
because the abolitionists did not commence a war upon the South there, but 
have left those Tcrritorries to the operation of natural causes. 

The sum of the matter of the freesoil doctrine about the Territories is this : 
If the South woDt go there ; if they will yield up the Territories to the Xorth, 
we will acquiesce and settle them when we get ready. But if they claim equal 
rights with us, and leave it to the people to decide, we will rebel, and fight, 
and break up the Union. 

How clearly and beautifully, in his letter of acceptance, Mr, Buchanan 
gives us the remedy against all the sectional quarrels and " geographical dis- 
criminations." 

"Let the members of the family (says he,) abstain from intermeddlinp; with the ex- 
clusive domestic concerns of each other, and the good work will be instantly accomplish- 
ed." 

That is the democratic platform. Xor is this any new sentiment of pacifi- 
cation got up by this experienced and calm statesman for the occasion to gain 
a nomination or secure an election. Thirty-four years ago, in 1822, in the 
House of Eepresentatives, on these same sectional issues, Mr. Buchanan 
said — 

" If I know myself I am a politician neither of the East nor of the West, of the North 
nor of the South. I therefore shall forever avoid any expressions, the direct tendency of 
which must be to create sectional divisions, and at length disunion, that worst of all 

POLITICAL CALAMITIES." 

EXAGGERATIOXS AND REVGLITTIGN. 

Driven by the argument from every position of constitutional or legal justi- 
fication for their rebellion in Kansas, the last resort of our opponents is to 
" the sacred right of revolution." They compare Kansas with the colonies 
when they resisted the Boston port bill and taxation without representation, 
and failing in all appeals for redress, declared themselves independent of Great 
Britain. 

And here again, we have the most monstrous assumptions, exaggerations 
and absurdities to keep up political excitement by false pretences. History 
is perverted, liberty libelled, and truth slandered by a Senator from Massa- 
chusetts, who compares the Kansas message of the President of the United 
States (who is sworn to defend the Constitution and " take care that the laws 
be faithfully executed,") with the message of King George, in 177-1, to the 
British Parliament, complaining of " the spirit of resistance and disobedience 
to the laws in the province of Massachusetts." 

And thereupon the Senator exclaims ''the battle in Kansas surpasses in 
moral granrhnr the icliolc war of the Revolution .'" 

AVhat profanation ! A border fight in the wilderness of Kansas about the 
location of negroes and squatters' claims, of more •' moral grandeur " than the 
whole achievement of the Independence of the United States ! Such is the 
distorted imagination of these people. 

]Mr. Howard of the Kansas Committee, follows in the same strain of pomp- 



ous verbosity which now a days passes for oratory. Chairman of an investi- 
gating Committee of the House bound to some show of decency if not impar- 
tiality, this member of Congress stops on his way to make a party speech in 
which he says — 

" If all the tyranny inflicted upon our forefathers hy the King of Great Britain were 
multiplied by ten, I could bring facts to prove that the poor settlers of Kansas have 
suifered more I" 

Here we are told that the whole catalogue of wrongs set forth in twenty- 
seven allegations made against the King of Great Britain in the Declaration 
of Independence — the seven years' war of privations, the horrors of the Jersey 
prison-ship, the sieges and sackings and burnings and rapines — sink into in- 
significance beside the few months of forays and fights, where one side or the 
other always ran away, in the border troubles of Kansas 1 — to_ say nothing of 
murders and robberies committed by free state men and bandits belonging to 
no part}". 

But if Kansas is like the Colonies and the President like King George, 
then the Senator and the Kansas Chairman must admit that the free state 
men, who are resisting the laws and the United States in that Territory, are 
in a state of rebellion ; and if so oppressed and so in rebellion then they must 
claim for Kansas a right to set up a government independent of the Cnited 
States. There is no middle ground for men to stand on, with arms in their 
hands against their own government, between rebellion to be punished and 
successful revolution. 

The legal fact is, there is no right of revolution or resistance to law reserv- 
ed to State or Territory ttndcr the Constitution of the L'nited States The 
States agreed in the Constitution, that the United States should " protect each 
State against domestic violence." Eevolution must begin with " domestic 
violence " against the existing government and then the President is bound 
at the proper request of the Governor or Legislature to call out the militia of all 
the States and the land and naval forces of the United States, " to suppress 
insurrection" in a State or Territory, and " execute the laws." It is the 
whole Union against a single State or Territory, and of course there can be 
no such thing as successful revolution under this system. 

This was the Rhode Island case. The majority who were denied the riglit 
of voting under the old Charter, contended for the right of the majority of the 
people of a State peacefully to change their Constitution. But the old Charter 
Legislature called upon the President to suppress insurrection the moment 
they took up arms, and when he decided which was the actual government of 
Ehode Island, the party of the peoples' Constitution submitted, and the old 
government remained in power ; and that is the law of the land for Kansas 
now, much stronger than it was for Rhode Island then, though the people of 
Rhode Island sufl:ered incomparably more privation in political and_ personal 
rights than the Kansas men ; and that was an original State, and this a mere 
two years' old Territory. 

Now when the flatulent orators, bigger with words than ideas, talk about 
reflation in a scarcely settled Territory, which they compare, in moral gran- 
deur to the deeds of our fathers in 1776, it is well enough for common sense 
men to turn to the record. 

You have heard that sublime Declaration of Independence read to-day in 
these ^\ords : 



26 

" When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve 
the political bonds which have connected them with another, a decent respect for the 
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to 
the separation /'' 

You there see what our fathers meant when they set forth their wrongs 
in that noble Declaration. Now to carry out the gi-andiloquent parallel of 
Senator Sumner and his imitators, we should like to know whether the Emi- 
gration Aid Societies or the Abolition people in Kansas actually propose to 
set up an Independent State outside of tlie Union ? 

If this is meant in Kansas or out of Kansas, it is civil wai' — it is rebel- 
lion, and they must fight the President and all the civil and military power 
of the United States for undertaking to enforce the laws in Kansas, just as 
Massachusetts and Virginia fought King George and his officers and troops 
for undertaking to enforce upon them tlie laws of Great Britain. 

That is tlie condition and the duty of Kansas, and all who give her insur- 
rectionists "aid and comfort" in rebelling against the United States abet 
U-(awn ; and, no amount of soft sophistry or large talk can change the plain, 
practical, legal and constitutional bearing of the issue. 

THE REAL ISSUE. 

Xow then, gentlemen, as the final point in our argument, what is the issue 
between the Democratic party and the Black-Republicans and their know- 
nothing allies, teaching Kansas ? 

Do not let them mislead you in a plain ro^tter. The issue is not, as they 
pretend, v.'hether slavery shall be established in Kansas, or whether a single 
human being, not now a slave, shall be made a slave there. But it is solely 
whether the real people who mean to ma e Kansas their home and be gov- 
erned by its laws, shall have the right,, in common with every State that ever 
entered into this Union, of deciding deliberately for themselves whether they 
will allow slaves to be brought from other States and live there, or exclude 
them from the Territory— or whether we of the North, who hold no slaves; 
by a bare numerical majority against the South, shall undertake to settle it 
beforehand for them ? 

Tkat is the question ; and pray mark what an arrogant assumption and 
intermeddling it is — for men in the Northern States alone, to say to the peo- 
ple of Kansas, thousands of miles off, "you are incapable of self-government 
— you don't know Avhat is best for yourselves, and we are going to fix out 
your domestic aftairs for you ! " 

Look at it just as it is. Here are a lot of recruits or volunteeriS, hired at 
a hundred dollars a head, in Massachusetts. Illinois or elsewhere, to go into 
Kansas with Sharp's rifles, and become citizens if you please. Well, we say 
to them, "true enough at your homes here in the old States, you have the 
right, as a part of the peojde, to decide what sort of domestic institutions 
you will have, but the moment you get into Kansas, you and every freeman 
there arc not to be trusted with such political power, and we must take care 
of you I You shall not have the right to say whether you will admit slaves 
or not, because you don't know enough to be trusted with self-government ! " 

AVhat sort of a doctrine for freemen is that ? AVhat sort of a free speech, 
Jr<(' press, _//TC Kansas, and i^^/Yc-mont is that? 

Are not the white men who are put under such a foi'eign guardianship, 
placed in a most humiliating condition of pupilage, and ought not every p n- 
sible man, who is a icltole man, be ashamed to submit to it".' 



27 

Now the Democrats don't undertake to say or do this. They say hands 
off ! leave them to settle this domestic matter for themselves, and to come 
into the Union, just as we old States did, with or without slavery as we 
liked. 

Thus you see how the diiFerent parties stand on their platforms. We hold 
that all the States have equal rights under the Constitution within their own 
territory, and within "the territory belonging to the United States." On 
the other hand, our opponeuts claim that sixteen States in this Union have 
the right, solely because they happen not to own slaves, to take all the terri- 
tories to themselves and put the other fifteen States, solely because they hold 
slaves and are in a minority, under their dictation, and rule over them under 
pretence of putting down "the slave power" — and we know that if they 
could by possibility elect Mr. Fremont, this would be only their first step to 
carry into execution their sectional and geographical conspiracy against the 
Union. 

Northern Democrats and, we trust, Northern Whig^?, (who, like Daniel 
Webster, " mean to live under a Constitution that covers the whole of the 
United States,") will not join in this conspiracy against the South because 
it is against the Constitution. Democrats distrust the men who are clamor- 
ing against " the slave power," because they are the same men and the same 
parties that have always gone against " the Democratic power " and the ex- 
tension of territory. If there are any deserters among them once Democrats, 
they are now found in the councils of the worst enemies of the democracy, 
who always make renegade Democrats their leaders, to deceive the people. 

And why should Democrats of the North sympathize with, much less join 
in this war upon the Democratic South, (which differs from them but upon 
a single point, our local views and habits concerning slavery.) and with 
whom, shoulder to shoulder, they have fought and won all the hard battles 
in politics from Jefi'erson to Pierce ? 

l^ook again- at this Kansas issue, which is magnified at the North to over- 
throw the democracy and rend the Union, There is no such cj[ucstion whether 
•WG are going to make a single slave more or less, either way. It is not true 
as affirmed by the Senator from Massachusetts, that this giving to Kansas 
the same freedom we have ourselves is "to fasten a new shackle upon our 
fellow-men." Whether Kansas excludes slaves or admits slaves, there will 
not be a single slave, more or less, in these United States of America. _ The 
whole question is whether a number of slaves, more or less, now living as 
slaves in Missouri or other slave-holding States, shall continue to be slaves 
there, or be removed over an imaginary line into Kansas, (if indeed they can 
live there at all, with the thermometer thirty degrees below zero.) 

THE KANSAS COXSTITUTION EXCLUDES FREE BLACKS. 

And pray make a note of the consistency of these political philanthropists, 
who profess so much love for the colored race. They are willing to " ht the 
Union Jtrk,'" rather than allow the people of Kansas to say whether they 
will admit ^lavc negroes to live in their territory ; but they have just voted 
in the House of Representatives, to admit Kansas into the Union with her 
Topeka Constitution, which requires the exclusion of all Jrcc persons of 
color from her limits forever ! They solemnly declare in that vote (and so 
did Mr, Sumner in the Senate) that a Constitution requiring legislation to 
banish all free black men, is verily " a Republican form of government," 



28 

and ttey claim to be tlie Eepublicans. They are trying to admit Kansas 
into the Union with a Constitution that secures to her the power to legislate 
free negroes out of her territory ! but to allow them to have their choice 
upon legislating slave negroes in, would be, as the once classical Senator 
from Massachusetts has permitted his tongue, with revolting vulgarity, to 
call it, "the crime against iiature yi\\\Q\\ language refuses to describe"! 
[See AYebster's Dictionary for a definition of " bestiality," the Senator's 
refined charge upon the President !] 

Has political consistency become a by-word with our opponents ? Why, 
after the mis-called Missouri compromise prohibiting slavery north of thirty 
sis degrees thirty minutes, was passed in 1820, the North broke faith with 
the South and opposed the admission of Missouri in 1821, solely because 
she had a provision in her Constitution excluding free blacks, and they 
would not admit her until the Southern and Northern Democrats consented 
to the only Missouri compromise ever made, viz., that no law should be 
made by her Legislature excluding free negroes who were citizens of other 
States. [Resolution of March 3, 1321.] Now then, the very men who 
clamor against the repeal of what they mis-call the Missouri compromise, 
clamor for the admission of Kansas with that same provision, as a part of 
her Constitution ! 

The whole of this mighty agitation against " the slave power," comes down 
to the simple problem in " a government of the people," whether a sectional 
President and a sectional Congress, chosen exclusively by the Northern 
States which hold no slaves, shall fix the location of negroes in the South, 
where they choose to have slaves ; or whether Congress shall let it alone and 
leave the States and Territories acting in their individual political capacity, 
as the Kanzas act leaves them, " perfectly free to form and regulate their 
domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of 
the Tnited States." 

There I leave the afi'airs of Kansas ; sure that we are right upon this 
question ; confident that we shall come out of the conflict with the flag of 
the Union still flying at the head of the Democratic column ; and that, not- 
withstanding all this temporary sectional excitement and indefatigable mis- 
repi'esenlation of the true issues at stake, the great majority of the people, 
as it always has done in every national conflict between the Democratic 
party and its opponents involving the true construction of the Constitution 
and the equal rights of the States, will ratify and confirm the democratic 
doctrine of 

" XO.\-INTEKVENTION BY CONGRESS WITH SLAVERY," 

as " the only safe and sound solution of the slavery question, upon which 
the national idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its de- 
termined conservatism of the Union." 

Here, then, we stand upon this platform, united North and South, wuth a 
candidate worthy to be chosen from all the statesmen of the land and placed 
at the head of the nation in this crisis of the Kepublic, as the wise con- 
servator of the peace of the Union at home and abroad ; and here we call 
upon all who love i\\Q\v icliole country better than a jurt, to stand and tri- 
umph "WITH US. 



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